For theater owners, it’s back to the future

In the battle to bring people back to movie theaters, little is new under the …

It's not going out on a limb to say that going to the movies isn't what it used to be. While a business as big and as complex as the movie industry isn't necessarily on its deathbed merely because of consecutive years of declining ticket sales, theater owners and the studios are worried about the future. This much can be seen from the fact that when they all get together, they talk about solving the problems that plague them, such as cell phones in theaters, dwindling public interest in their product, and calls to address the release window. They're also busy redefining the problem, at least from a public relations standpoint:

"With everything that's going on, audiences last year seemed to be making an exodus away from movie theaters. And who could blame them?" observed Paul Dergarabedian, Exhibitor Relation Co. "It's no longer just about the movie; it's more about the total experience."

The spin is obvious: now people care about the whole experience, whereas they didn't a few years ago. Of course, this is rubbish. The "whole experience" has been a central component of movie-going for decades, and the theaters have addressed this in varied ways. Multiplexes are built for convenience and large concessions offerings, seats have been expanded and outfitted with convenient holders for concessions. And never mind the slew of technology to come through theaters, either.

Regardless, the "experience" is the focus for the future, because the other options aren't palatable (lowering prices, for instance). The Mercury News reports that one theater in Hollywood now allows patrons to bring their own alcohol to special screenings for patrons 21 and older. Other theaters are testing reserved seating and advertising-free movies, hoping that movie-goers will pay a little more for the convenience. Yet most of these ideas are "recycled" reruns. Assigned seating is nothing new, nor the the pairing of alcohol and movies. In fact, in some places, you used to get an advertising-free movie experience, reserved seating and more, for *gasp* the regular price of admission.

Where things get interesting is on the technology front. Inasmuch as the rise of television spurred the movie industry to invent new and—more importantly&#151movie-theater-only technologies such as (good) 3D and CinemaScope, there are hopes that this current downturn could lead the industry back to the innovation front and out of the cozy brothels of smug expectations. Disney is working on 3D movies for kids, but is that as good as it can get? What role can IMAX play? Only the industry can really answer.

The clock is ticking, however. Even if the uptake of HD optical media is slow, it's still significant in terms of setting customer expectations. As the number of households with HD increases over the next few years, the battle between the couch and the cinema is only going to heat up. Moving the "amenities" lever up to Max would be a start, but how successful it will be will also depend on where the money lever lands. When 20 percent of respondents are telling the MPAA that they aren't getting their money's worth at the theater, and with another 33 percent saying that their living room beats the theaters hands-down, raising prices could eliminate the very draw they're hoping to create.

Ken Fisher / Ken is the founder & Editor-in-Chief of Ars Technica. A veteran of the IT industry and a scholar of antiquity, Ken studies the emergence of intellectual property regimes and their effects on culture and innovation.